


Light Magic

by Missy



Category: The Venture Bros
Genre: Father-Daughter Relationship, Gen, Growing Up, Magic-Users
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-25
Updated: 2015-12-25
Packaged: 2018-05-09 07:03:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 608
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5530328
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Missy/pseuds/Missy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Triana, Orpheus, and the effect magic has on their relationship.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Light Magic

As a child, Triana knew one thing for certain – she shouldn’t go near her father’s private library without his permission. There are precisely four thousand spellbooks in her father’s room, and Triana thinks she’s going to read every single one before she turns twelve. She doesn’t really know much about the actual words - and she doesn’t want to say any of them out loud – but she definitely feels drawn to it all, bound and curious about the sort of magic running hidden in her veins.

Her father lies to her about it, but she knows the truth.

But children are not experts at resisting the lures and intrigues of temptation, and so he finds her there one day, comfortably crammed into a corner with a large volume of Venetian hexes spread out over her knees, reading quietly to herself and mentally stumbling over words too big to wrap her lips around. “Now pumpkin,” he says sonorously, “Those aren’t toys for children. But perhaps someday I shall indoctrinate you into the MYSTICAL WORLD OF NECROMANCY!” He takes her onto his knee and squeezes her about the waist, and finds a volume of Grimm’s Fairytales to read her instead.

***

When Triana is sixteen she’ll pick up a book and feel a shudder of revulsion roll through her flesh. She’ll remember the way her closet smells like brimstone, remember the feeling of cool pages flipping between her fingers, and wonder how she managed to lose hold of the magic in ten short years.

She’ll remember sneaking out with Kim for late night concerts with boys twice her age, and she’ll remember the feeling of purple lipgloss, and Dean Venture’s high, soft voice telling her about the humiliations of his childhood. 

Hers was like a Charles Addams cartoon. She thinks she got the better end of the deal.

**** 

When Triana is eleven she’ll notice the weird, eerie light that emanates from beneath the door of her closet. Sometimes she’ll cautiously stick her finger under the gap and feel the chill, a sudden nip to her finger, and let out a little cry of pain. Her father encourages her to stay away from it – her experiences only support her theory.

She wears the same outfit every day for years and no one really notices the difference. She notices the gaps in her memory but no one else does. She writes it off, chalks it up, and moves on.

**** 

When she finds out about the Outrider, about her mother – about her magical destiny – she tries to be mad with her father for awhile. But getting angry at Byron Orpheus is like kicking a puppy dog – he’s always intended the best for her, has always been wholly proud of her accomplishments – has loved her so totally for so long that she knows all of his missteps, his foolish choices, were driven by a single impulse – affection.

He sees her off to her mother’s house, hosts her quietly when she comes home on the weekends. Her father is remorseful only to the extent that he’d broken the trust between them; she is only angry insofar as she had to sneak around behind his back constantly to experience a normal adolescence. 

*** 

She glances out the window of her dorm room. It’s another rainy Saturday, and she’s alone, studying for her transmogrification final. Eventually there’s the sound – something tapping against her window. 

She opens the window and her father floats there, a tin of homemade snickerdoodles in his hand. “Pumpkin! I’ve brought COOKIES to assist you in your studies! Be a dear and let me inside?”

And she puts the book aside to drink tea with her dad.


End file.
